


Keyrings

by chantaozi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Chinese Mythology & Folklore, Coming of Age, Eventual Smut, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 13:09:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12277128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantaozi/pseuds/chantaozi
Summary: Clasping onto the hands of a puzzling boy, majoring in ballet, whilst being chased down by mythological beasts, wasn't what Baekhyun had in mind for his journey of soul searching: Self-discovery is a difficult path to pursuit.





	Keyrings

_“The Nian, a beast that lives under the sea or in the mountains.”_  
****

 Baekhyun arduously looked up from his ‘Mystical Creatures’ textbook, a textbook which his new Professor, Dr. Huang, had pestered him to purchase. The book lay still on his plastic table, rested and familiar to its usual position of late night revision sessions, which would creep into the early hours of the morning. With a sigh reminiscent of the day he left his hometown in Bucheon, he closed the dull book- which currently depicted a graphic scene of an animal which seemed like a bull but had the head of a lion, mauling innocent villagers- and made his way to his cat’s already-full, food bowl. “Oh Dio, why did I decide to major in Chinese mythology?”.

 

Baekhyun ventured to the tiny refrigerator in the corner of his tiny apartment, taking out a packet of cat food. Shaking the packet he sang, “Dio, do you want some more food? You’re a cat, you should be able to enjoy your freedom of being able to do whatever.” A peculiar silence greeted him, which was weird since Dio would usually come running at the sound of ‘Mr. Nibbles’ being shaken. Baekhyun began to shake the packet more aggressively, hoping his overweight black cat would come out of hiding. “Dio! It’s your favourite!”. His voice seemed to get increasingly panicked as he pushed up the glasses which were now hanging off his small nose. An eerily cold breeze of wind evaded his lonely apartment and Baekhyun dashed to close the only open window in the room. _Open window._ Grabbing his phone, packet of Mr. Nibbles and set of keys, which had an obnoxious red siren-like keyring attached to it- his elder sister gifted to him as a ‘protection device’- he made his way out of the flat. 

 

Living on the ground floor of a high-rise Chengdu apartment building had its flaws. Baekhyun didn’t enjoy the constant noise of giggling students waiting for the elevator, which operated directly outside his apartment door. He also didn't like the fact that his only other neighbour would play extremely loud classical music at any given time, but for emergency situations- like finding your missing cat- he reasoned his living quarters weren't all bad. 

 

Leaving the comfort of the apartment building and entering the darkness of the night, Baekhyun- and his pyjama clad body- were greeted with zero-degree weather and no signs of Dio. “Where is that silly cat,” he grumbled, wrapping his skinny arms around his sub-zero body. The garden of the building block was decorated with a series of dense trees, ominously crowding each other as if they were trying to hide a secret- or in other words, made the search for Dio just that bit harder. “Dio! Dio! Where are you-“. A slight rustle in the abyss of the forest caught his attention, he tentatively walked closer to the opening of Pandora’s box. “Are you in there Dio?”, he called out to no response. _Another rustle._ Accepting the fate of the night, Baekhyun bravely set one foot into the mystery forest. Body shaking- and not just from the harsh weather- he followed the irregular shaking coming from the plain green bush. With his terrible eyesight, he could just make out a tail of some sort, prodding out of the greenery. “Dio? Is that you-,” and before he can finish his sentence, a man- a young man, no older than him, with flowing black hair, and dressed in ballet clothes pushes him to the floor.

 

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun exclaims, getting up from the floor in a rather embarrassed manner, dusting off non-existent dirt, collecting his glasses.

 

“ _Me_?,” the boy looks at him with bewildered eyes, as if he was the one that was just rugby tackled to the floor. “What are _you_ doing? Why are you at here at midnight? It’s dangerous!” the taller boy says, pointing to the middle of the forest, and continues, “it’s the first day- wait no, even worse- it’s the morning of the Chinese new year, you’re not supposed to be out here!”. Baekhyun glances down at his phone. _00:23am_. “Why am I not supposed to be here and more importantly, why did you just push me onto the floor and _why_ are you wearing ballet clothes?”, he questions in a slightly too interrogative manner. The ballet boy holds back his laughter when he realises the smaller’s confused state.

 

“I’m Yixing-” 

 

Baekhyun cuts him off, sighing heavily- overwhelmed at this display of neighbourhood nonsense, “And?”.

 

“ _Don’t you believe in legends?”_. 

 

“What do you mean, ‘legends’?”. 

 

The black haired boy makes his way to the bush, slowly but carefully. “That,” his long finger points at the tail, “isn’t whatever you think it is.” Baekhyun now has several questions swimming through his head but all these thoughts are silenced when the taller boy finishes his sentence. “It’s a _Nian_.”

 

Baekhyun sarcastically laughed. “A Nian? As in the Chinese mythological creature that appears every year at the beginning of the Chinese New Year, which comes out of hiding to feed on villagers? _That_ Nian?”.

 

Yixing quickly nods his head with confidence, not registering his previous statement to be quite unbelievable to a complete stranger. 

 

“So you’re telling me, that whatever is in that hedge, is a ferocious, mythical beast, ready to attack it’s first unwilling victim. The same beast I just learned about in a text book 27 minutes ago?” The shrub began to shudder more vigourously. Baekhyun noticed that the boy’s original, assured expression had fallen into a face of mild agitation. Yixing crouched down slightly to meet the other’s height and quietened his voice, “Look, I don’t know what to tell you other than mystical creatures aren’t as mystical as you think, endless accounts of various creatures being spotted have been documented all over the world. It’s people like you who refuse to believe the supposably impossible, who end up getting killed, so please lets go before that thing notices that it is not the only one in this damned forest!” 

 

Baekhyun only just realises that the boy’s hand is loosely holding onto the cuffs of his plain black pyjamas, he shrugs off the others grip. “ _Whatever_. I’m going to get my cat.” And with that, he leaves the ballet boy at the entrance of the forest as he ventures into the unknown. 

 

Of course his journey is short-lived when he hears a painstakingly loud roar of terror and annihilation. The scream rings in his ears as he drops to the floor; shock making his legs shut down in fear. Everything stills and all he can feel is the wet cluster of winter leaves digging into his quivering body. His eyesight is blurred, but in the darkness he can make out the outline of an animal- no, a monster- the size of a colosseum lion, stride out of the deceptive bush. It’s jagged whiskers are as long as the jian swords he saw a couple months ago at his university’s ancient weapon exhibition, razor-edged and vicious. A bright flash of orange light hurling towards the beast wakes up his slugged state, and a frantic Yixing sprints towards him. _“RUN NOW_.” Baekhyun scrambles up from the floor, almost breaking his ankle in the process, and grips onto the the other boys’ wrist as they hurriedly make their way out of the forest. “Thats,” Baekhyun anxiously pants while trying to keep up with Yixing’s long legs rushing out of the grave of trees, “impossible, how”. Yixing ignores his question as they run to the apartment building. They reach the fire exit at the side of building. “How do you open this thing,” Yixing huffs as he smashes his body into the side of the building, desperate to get to safety. Baekhyun stiffens next to him as he watches the monster slowly creep out the forest, its head slowly turning up and down at the two dishevelled boys. Baekhyun’s read this in his textbook, “Yixing, we have to get inside immediately,” he begins to repeatedly force his back into the fire exit’s door, he recalls, “when the Nian attacks, it sizes up its prey before sprinting towards it and devouring the prey’s head.” Yixing’s abruptly answers as he kicks, punches- abuses- the door to open, “do you remember,” he stops his useless attempts to try and get into the building, “anything about the weaknesses of the Nian”, his voice is desperate and the beast is coming closer, “every mythical creature has a weakness, this must have one too.” Baekhyun racks up his accounts of page 312, searching his memory for an answer which could possibly determine their life or death. Worriedly, he begins, “Weaknesses of the Nian are purported to be a sensitivity to loud noises, fire, and a fear of the colour red.” The two boys search their limited belongings. Yixing lets out a high-pitched defeated sigh, “Oh god i’ve already thrown my lighter at it, we’re going to die.” Baekhyun turns his pockets inside out, he can’t find his phone and he is only left with his keys. “Wait,” Yixing starts, “what’s that?”. His shaking hand points towards the keyring Baekhyun’s sister gifted to him. Baekhyun looks down at the keyring and then at the beast which is so incredibly close Baekhyun swears he can feel its breath hovering over him- or maybe thats just his sweat. “Its a gimmick,” he sorrily answers, “a device thats supposed to warn off danger against murderers or weird men, its useless-“. Yixing shuts the boy up by hastily ripping the device off the keyring. Pressing the tiny button, the device lights up an almighty colour of red, the type of red you’d be welcomed with in the pits of hell and a siren noise so loud and whining, that the beast’s previous roars pale in comparison. Baekhyun put his hands to his ears as Yixing hurls the red thing towards the monster at a speed faster than anything he’s ever seen before. The flying device makes direct contact with the the creature and the obnoxious red flashing light reflects into it’s eyes. The beast startles and cowers anyway from the rather ridiculous little thing and as if it was never there, sprints back into the forest. Both of the boys look at each other in bewilderment, chests heaving and hands shaking, they watch in silence at the ringing keyring in the middle of the yard’s floor. “We-we did it,” Yixing says, voice unsure and in shock. Baekhyun breathlessly replies, “yeah.” The ringing device turns off and they are left in the winters morning alone. “I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to attend my dance exam if I died,” Yixing joked, chest still rising up and down in irregular intervals. Baekhyun goes along with the conversation, feeling too many emotions to let them all out at once, “you’re a ballet dancer? he asks, body still slumped up against the side of the door. “Yeah, at Sichuan Uni-,” “Oh, I go there too,” “Cool.” They both sit in silence for 10 minutes, unable to speak at the nights events until Yixing gets up and Baekhyun decides he wants to get up too. He hands him over his set of keys and they both walk up to the entrance of the building. Intrigued, Baekhyun asks, “So… do you live here too?”. Yixing gets his keys from his pocket, “yeah bottom floor, room 107.” Baekhyun smiles to himself as he realises Yixing, the ballerina, must be thethe neighbour on his floor who plays loud classical music. They make it inside the building and down the hall till Baekhyun notices a chubby cat curled up in a ball outside his apartment door. “Hey? Isn’t that your cat?”, Yixing asks going down to stroke the unaware animal, who he’s been trying to find all night. Baekhyun looks down at the sleeping cat, “Yes, yes it is,” and goes to give feed him his packet of Mr. Nibbles he’s been waiting to give Dio all night. 

**Author's Note:**

> ahh !! the first chapter of my first ever fic is out !! i hope we can all agree that glasses on baekhyun is a concept, alongside ballet dancer! yixing. as the story progresses, characterisation will deepen- we will discover who baekhyun and yixing truly are (and who they want to be) with, perhaps, a couple (as cliche as it sounds) bumps in the road. our jongin will get introduced, alongside other characters soon too. if you have taken time out of your day to read my unpolished fic, i sincerely thank you <3


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